Voters should take advantage of their opportunities

Over the past three weeks, I’ve had the privileged of moderating three candidate forums — two in Swansboro and one in Emerald Isle — on behalf of the Swansboro Area Chamber of Commerce.

Mike McHugh

Over the past three weeks, I’ve had the privileged of moderating three candidate forums — two in Swansboro and one in Emerald Isle — on behalf of the Swansboro Area Chamber of Commerce.

In all, more than 400 citizens heard 12 candidates answer 47 questions ranging from quality of life issues such as bike paths and waterfront access to pocketbook topics such as tax rates and potentially expanding property insurance rates.

The chamber, under the able leadership of Executive Director Donna Hammonds and the body’s Government Affairs Committee, structured the public forums and crafted questions pertinent to the issues in the respective communities.

To say each of three forums was enlightening is an understatement. During the course of the three separate programs featuring a diverse group of candidates — each of whom stepped into the public arena to place their ideals and vision for the future before the voters — only served to reinforce my faith in our representative form of government.

For the record, the forums involved three men from Swansboro seeking the mayor’s seat along with five citizens hoping to be elected to three seats on its town board.

Across the bridge from the mainland, Emerald Isle residents turned out early to evaluate four men covering a broad spectrum of age and experience to be the town’s next mayor — a challenging position made even more so when juxtaposed with the large shoes of retiring Mayor Art Schools.

But this isn’t an Election Day eve column attempting to prognosticate the outcomes of the upcoming two municipal elections which, if history is any guide, will be decided by a small margin of votes cast by a disappointingly small number of voters. Rather it is an opportunity to pontificate about the state of citizen involvement both as candidates and voters.

The Emerald Isle forum was a gem. With more than 45 minutes before the start of the evening, the town’s gymnasium was teeming with more than 300 citizens who filled every seat and areas along the walls. The candidates mingled with the crowd while reporters from all the generally read and viewed media — Anna Harvey from the Carteret News-Times and Jannette Pippin from The Daily News along with Jamie Hicks from WCTI-TV — covered the event.

The candidates — Ryan Ayre, Eddie Barber, Brandon Staton and Don Wells — fielded 11 prepared questions from the chamber plus five submitted from that evening’s audience. Each man expressed their position and gave those in attendance several options as to who should be the town’s next mayor.

Swansboro’s mayoral forum was just as intense, albeit before a substantially smaller crowd than Emerald Isle’s. Incumbents Scott Chadwick, Junior Freeman and Rick McCormic laid out their vision for The Friendly City by the Sea.

The third and final forum returned to Swansboro bringing together five candidates — incumbents Gery Boucher, Larry Philpott and challengers to planning board chairman Pat Turner, newcomer June Buchanan and Phil Keagy, a past commissioner — vying for the three open seats on the town’s board. The crowd assembled counted less than 40 people, but their focus was as intense on the answers provided by the candidates.

First and foremost, I respect and admire any citizen who takes that step from being a taxpayer and an honest, productive member of society to one who wishes to represent and lead his or her neighbors as an elected official.

Secondly, I tip my hat to the voters who dedicated a portion of their evenings to come out to hear the candidates’ views and be informed on the different positions associated with each candidate. If you’re a voter in Swansboro and Emerald Isle and still don’t know who your candidates are, shame on you. You’ve had ample opportunity to become familiar with whoever will lead your community once the ballots have been counted Tuesday.

And, finally, I will never understand why any citizen refuses to exercise their franchise and cast a vote. Municipal elections tend to have light turnout with only a fraction of eligible voters venturing to the polls ­— and the difference between winner and loser often coming down to a handful of votes.

For a society in which more than 90 percent of households annually watch the Super Bowl and where more than 16 million Americans tuned into this season’s debut of Dancing with the Stars, shouldn’t casting a ballot enjoy similar numbers and citizen participation?

Swansboro resident Mike McHugh is an advertising account executive with The Daily News. Readers can email him at: mike.mchugh@jdnews.com.